Beginning DNA for African American Genealogy

By AdminJul 07, 2018
Original publication date unknown. By Shannon S. Christmas, MCP >> You’ve talked to every relative you know. You’ve scoured every relevant website, courthouse, library, historical society, and archive imaginable. You’ve even hired professionals. But your one nagging genealogical mystery remains unsolved. Perhaps the answer to your question isn’t indexed online or listed in any library’s card catalog. Perhaps the clue you’re seeking lives in your genes, encoded in the language of your DNA. Try DNA testing.
Read More

1,275 Obituary and Obituary Index Links from the U.S.

By AdminJul 07, 2018
Originally published May 30, 2018. By The Ancestor Hunt >> One of the main goals for genealogists in searching historic newspapers is to find obituaries. Obituaries are a gold mine of information. They provide death dates and locations, funeral and cemetery information and sometimes more importantly - information about the relatives of the deceased's family and extended family.  This family name information is often not found anywhere else.
Read More

Has FamilySearch Digitized the Records You Need?

By AdminJul 07, 2018
Original publication date unknown. By Toni Carrier >> FamilySearch recently announced that they had added the 2 billionth record to their free online databases of digitized historical documents. The records giant currently adds over 300 million new images a year to their online holdings. A world of free resources for African American genealogy await you on FamilySearch – you just have to know how to find them.
Read More

Georgetown Memory Project

By AdminJul 07, 2018
Originally published April 28, 2018. By Terrence McCoy >> The search for the lost slaves began with a simple question. Every month for two years, Richard Cellini, founder of an organization looking for descendants of the slaves sold to save Georgetown University, had updated a spreadsheet. It showed consistent progress: More and more descendants were learning the truth — that the Jesuit priests running Georgetown had sold their ancestors in 1838 to two Louisiana plantation owners to pay university debts.
Read More

Common Place: The Lemmon Slave Case

By AdminJul 07, 2018
Originally published Fall 2013. By Marie Tyler-McGraw and Dwight T. Pitcaithley >> In May of 1837, William "Billy" Douglas, a prosperous farmer and landholder in Bath County, at the southern end of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, died. A man of large appetites and little schooling, he was well-adapted to Virginia's mountain frontier in the early nineteenth century and he acquired property and children with equal energy. His will, which he signed with an X, described his extensive acreage along the Cowpasture River in Bath County that included at least two farms, and 30 slaves, all of which he distributed among the thirteen children…
Read More

History of the Afro-American Group of the Episcopal Church

By AdminJul 07, 2018
Originally published in 2000. Month and year unknown. By George F. Bragg >>  When the Church of England came to America, it sought to embrace all of the people, without respect to race. Despite the difficulties and unfavorable conditions the very early records of parish churches disclose the fact that babes of African descent were brought to Holy Baptism and incorporated into the Church of Christ. The children of the slaves or servant class, were diligently instructed in the Church Catechism, and, at the proper time, brought to the Bishop for Confirmation. That is, after the Church in this country had…
Read More

Slavery and the American University

By AdminJul 07, 2018
Originally published February 7, 2018. By Alex Carp >> From their very beginnings, the American university and American slavery have been intertwined, but only recently are we beginning to understand how deeply. In part, this can be attributed to an expansion of political will.
Read More

Look for Your Ancestor in South Carolina Voting Records

By AdminJul 07, 2018
Originally published February 5, 2018. By Robin Foster >> For the next few blog posts, we will focus on how you might be able to identify your ancestors in resources generated between 1865 to 1876. If you remember, last week we found research avenues in “Identifying Research Avenues for Rev. Lafayette Franklin Vance, (1861-1952).” Well, Rev. Lafayette Franklin Vance is the son of Beverly Vance (1832-1899) and his wife, Matilda Dunlap Vance (1841- ). We searched for Beverly Vance in the voting registrations and found he voted in 1868.  
Read More